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Auction History Result

4s540 ADVENTURES OF CAPTAIN MARVEL 12pg pressbook 1941 predates Superman & Batman, incredibly rare!

Date Sold 3/17/2019
Sold For: Login or Register to see sold price.


An Original 1941 Vintage Theatrical Movie Pressbook (pb; measures 12" x 18" [30 x 46 cm]; 12 pages) (Learn More)

Adventures of Captain Marvel, the 1941 John English & William Witney comic book superhero fantasy serial ("A Republic Serial in 12 Chapters"; "Based on the character in WHIZ COMICS Magazine" by C.C. Beck; about the boy who becomes a superhero when he says "Shazam" and he fights a mysterious masked villain called "The Scorpion") starring Tom Tyler (in the title role as Captain Marvel), Frank Coghlan Jr. (as Billy Batson, Captain Marvel's youthful alter ego), Louise Currie, William 'Billy' Benedict, Robert Strange, Kenne Duncan, Stanley Price, and John Davidson. Note that no one is credited as playing the lead masked villain, "The Scorpion" but IMDb notes that Gerarld Mohr voiced The Scorpion (uncredited). Note that Republic Pictures had tried to make a deal with DC Comics to make serials of Superman and Batman in 1940, but they could not agree on a deal, and in fact a lawsuit resulted. So instead they made a deal with Whiz Comics and made this serial in 1941, and the serial "Spy Smasher" in 1942 (and DC Comics signed with Columbia Pictures in 1943, and made their Batman and Superman serials there!). So this was the very first of the many "live action" movies based on the costumed super heroes, and, likely because it was released at the start of America's involvement in World War II, and there were paper drives over the next few years, original 1941 movie paper on this title is EXTREMELY rare!
NOTE: Click on linked names to see a biography.
Important Added Info: Note that Republic Pictures made two different pressbooks for this serial. Both measure 12" x 18", but one has 16 pages and the other has 12 pages. The 16-page one has two-color printing throughout, and has a great full-color "tipped-in" herald, and the 12-page one is solely black & white and does not have a herald. The most likely explanation is that the one with more color and more pages was sent to larger theaters, and the other one was sent to smaller theaters. We have seen this with other pressbooks from this time period. This auction is for the 12-page black & white version, which we have auctioned once before. We have also auctioned one example of the 16-page version, in our March 2019 Major Auction. Also note that we have provided an image of the front and back covers of this pressbook (if the back cover is not the poster page, we photographed the interior poster page), and of course, the winner of this auction will receive the entire single pressbook we are auctioning (plus any supplements or heralds described above)! Also note that this pressbook is complete and uncut! Given that theater owners purchased pressbooks partly in order to create their newspaper advertising, and quite frequently cut them up for that purpose, it is rare to find a pressbook that IS complete and uncut!

Condition: good, NO CUTS. The pressbook is complete and uncut. It is folded across the middle. The covers are partially separated at the spine. There is tiny paper loss at the top of all the pages, with slightly more on the front cover, but only blank white paper is affected. There is much light staining scattered on both covers, but not on the interior pages (see our images).
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